Sport & Fitness

On the surface of it, the voluminous ankle-length black skirts we’re presented with at the can-can class I’m attending look more innocuous than frou frou. But as soon as I and the other women put them on – in the basement reception room of the chi-chi Myhotel Bloomsbury – after the warm up their purpose is immediately apparent.

Our first lesson is how to hold our skirts so that as we dance the froth of red, white and blue-tiered frills on the skirts underside is revealed – along with our legs and knickers.

Skirts upheld and pinched between finger and thumb, Megan, our teacher, shows us the basic steps we’ll be using, the step-ball-change – a basic skipping motion – and then how to do the famous kick. (Leg up, knee bend, leg down, then kick.)

A traditional element of the dance is to make as much noise as possible and the dance starts with all of us clapping their hands (uplifted hems tucked under our armpits) cat-calling and blowing kisses to our imaginary audience. As we’ve been learning the initial steps in silence with no music, this helps break the tension and gets everyone giggling.
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Megan puts on Jacques Offenbach’s famous 'galop infernal' music from his operetta ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’ and we’re off.

It’s an energetic two hours. We start in formation, lift our skirts, step, ball, change across the dancefloor to a new location, lift our skirts towards each other then towards our ‘audience’. Breathlessly we join hands, and form a circle hopping on one leg while seductively rotating the other. ‘Stir the spoon!’ instructs Megan. Chasing to keep up with the music we throw ourselves into the jazz splits (pretend splits covered by the skirt where one leg is kept bent ), then leap up for the main event.

Da da. Da di. Da di da da da – in two chorus rows of six we canter on the spot and high-kick our legs before taking a bow by turning our backs on the audience and throwing our skirts over our heads to expose our bottoms. It’s impossible to do high-energy exercise without the endorphins kicking in and a giant smile appearing, particularly with the frivolous soundtrack – but mid-grin I start to feel uncomfortable. There’s a dubious sexual politics to learning a dance that is effectively showing your pants to a male audience – even if you are losing calories along with your dignity.

The can-can evolved in the 1830s from an earlier dance called the Quadrille that was danced by both men and women. It was initially danced in music halls by off-duty housemaids, seamstresses and other working-class women. By the time it reached the dizzy heights of the Moulin Rouge in the 1880s it was taken up by professional dancers who titillated the crowd with glimpses of stocking tops and frilly undergarments,
though the idea that they actually danced it commando is a myth.

What bothers me is the grinning inanity of this particular dance. In a striptease or lapdance the interplay between the audience and performer is based around hard-edged voyeurism; the dancer wields a power over the spectator. Similarly, at the heart of the burlesque performance is usually one woman’s ability to play with and manipulate the audience’s response.

With the can-can, the sheer inanity of laughing, clapping and pulling up one’s skirt reminds me more of the kind of silly games you stop finding amusing once you’ve left nursery school. A row of poor souls who don’t know better being encouraged to flash their pants at a sniggering audience.

We end the dance on the floor panting after a second round of jazz splits, exercised and exhausted. I’ll own up to having fun, and as an exercise class the can-can does the trick, but maybe its ethics need to be high-kicked into touch.

Polestars (020 7274 4865/www.polestars.net). Next four-week course starts May 6, £100.